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Dear Sam, I'm taking down the art and pictures from the wall where our stairs are. We've loved our gallery wall, but it's turned into a mess of broken, patched frames. Our kids keep knocking into frames as they go up and down the stairs, as some photos are pretty low. One glass frame was shattered, and I spent a week worrying someone would get splinters in their feet. I've decided that the photos have to go, and am keen on stripes. Do you recommend vertical or horizontal? I'm not worried about dirt on the walls as our kids are older now and are neat and tidy, just a bit rough. I was hoping for some inspiration from you. Thanks in advance, Judith

Hi Judith,

Good timing! Just a few days ago I was at Farrow & Ball (farrow-ball.com), looking at their wallpaper catalogue. (I'm working on a Cityline television segment for April 15 that's all about wallpaper; be sure to check it out). As you can see from the inspiration photos, Farrow & Ball has multiple colours and styles of stripes. While horizontal stripes would make the stair area look wider, I think the best way to hang stripes on a staircase wall is vertically. It will make your staircase seem taller; plus, it won't compete with the spindles of your stair rails. I've selected a couple of images of their striped wallpaper to give you inspiration. One thing I love about the new Chromatic Stripe papers is that you can reverse hang the paper so that you get a double-width bold stripe. (As an aside, anyone doing a nursery or kid's room will want to use the reverse hang or hang wallpaper horizontally. Stripes that are evenly spaced in children's rooms remind me of bars in a jail cell. Being enveloped by evenly spaced blackand-white cage-like stripes is not the best way to start life.) Back to your question: Shop for heavy-grade paper that will weather your kids' roughhousing. There are several wallpapers on the market that have a protective coating and zero VOCs , which you can spot clean with a damp cloth. The pre-pasted wallpaper of the '70s and '80s was easy to hang, but had loads of chemicals and toxins; and was, well, just downright stinky for days. I'm thinking of my Jack and Jill bedroom wallpaper that smelled for years. Sniffing it always made me feel happy, but in retrospect that wasn't a good thing.

The best piece of advice I can give you when it comes to wallpaper is to hire a recommended professional hanger. I know many people who have learned the hard and expensive way that unless you are patient, exacting and crafty, hanging wallpaper is an art, a job that should be done by a craftsperson. A professional hanger will order the right amount of paper and know how to mix the paste as well as bookend the paper for just the right amount of time so that it doesn't get overly wet, or shrink once it's on the walls. Plus, you're aiming for a well-decorated staircase, which means wallpaper that stays up without bubbles, patches and messy ceiling cuts.

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